randomingoftherandomness:

madlori:

rehfan:

madlori:

citeyourgoddamnsources:

madlori:

Okay, so. I have Thoughts.

I’d been totally on board with the “Rey is a Skywalker” theory until…like, tonight. Star Wars is in many ways the Skywalker family saga, and for her to be anything else didn’t seem to have enough oomph to it. It seemed the obvious answer.

Perhaps too obvious.

She’d have to be Luke’s daughter, because otherwise…well, she can’t be Han and Leia’s daughter, they’d never have left her on Jakku, it just…doesn’t make sense. 

But her being Luke’s daughter presents some narrative…difficulties. If she is, that naturally leads to the question of who her mother is. Where did he meet her? What was their relationship like? What happened to her? These are a lot of questions, and they can’t be easily waved off because he is THE MAIN CHARACTER of the original trilogy and it’s not trivial to give him this kind of a backstory and then have to spend precious story time explaining it. You kinda can’t just say “Rey, I am your father” and then leave it at that.

And the whole “Rey and Kylo have to be related to give that conflict weight” thing…doesn’t really work for me. It works if they’re siblings, which I don’t think they can possibly be. But cousins? That’s not a super emotionally fraught familial relationship, usually.  If I were writing this, I think I’d decide that if they can’t be siblings, it’s better to have them unrelated, but with a different, significant ancestral connection.

Which brings me to the other major theory, which is that Rey is a Kenobi. That seemed to lack punch. Until I read the following tonight (paraphrased, apologies to the original poster whose post I can’t find found it):

“Rey is a Kenobi – one who will finally succeed in pulling someone back from the Dark Side.”

Whoa.

Okay. THAT has some narrative heft to it. 

Consider. After three viewings of TFA, I think two major parallel character arcs are being set up:

1. Rey’s hero’s journey and evolution into a Jedi, AND
2. The redemption/salvation of Ben Solo 

These two arcs are in many ways complementary and interconnected. Each will drive the other. That is good dramatic structure. Light and dark, evolution and reinvention.

Obi-Wan’s failure with Anakin is one of the great unresolved emotional arcs of all time and I don’t think he ever got over it. He did spend the rest of his life marooned on a desert hellhole (hey that sounds familiar). If Rey were his descendant, and she had the chance to do what he could not do, with Anakin’s descendant – who is NAMED AFTER OBI-WAN – that’s downright Shakespearean. 

Also consider that while the original trilogy was very much a Skywalker story, the prequel trilogy was just as much Obi-Wan’s story as Anakin’s (one could argue more so). And if rumors about a Kenobi spinoff starring Ewan McGregor are true, Star Wars taken as a whole may less be the Skywalker family saga and more the Skywalker/Kenobi family saga. Two bloodlines interconnected and always finding each other. And there’s a pleasing symmetry in the idea that Obi-Wan and Anakin continue their battle for the Skywalker soul through their respective grandchildren.

If that is the case, it makes total sense for Rey to be a Kenobi – the Skywalker portion of the saga continues through Ben, the Kenobi portion through Rey.

The issue of whose child she is is still there, but it’s less pressing because Obi-Wan is no longer a part of the story the way Luke is. And might it be that the Kenobi spinoff could be meant to fill this gap, and explain Rey’s parentage?

And I keep wondering if it’s an accident that Rey has a British accent. All the Skywalkers have American accents, but Obi-Wan always had a British one. Yes, that’s Daisy Ridley’s native accent, but they had John Boyega do American, so there has to be a reason she speaks in that accent. They’re not just having everyone speak the way they normally speak, they’re being specific about which accents people are using.

I think I just talked myself into thinking this even MORE.

My only concern here is that I would not want Rey’s function in this trilogy to come down to saving Ben’s soul. She has her own journey to make and it also has to be HERS. But part of that journey may involve resolving her (possible) grandfather’s greatest failure.

Anyway, that’s my theory.

I really like this theory except for one detail.  Kenobi took his Jedi principles pretty seriously, despite all his shitheadery.  I have a hard time seeing him just going “fuck it, I’ll take a wife, no rules, desert planet.”

I agree, that’s a sticking point. It just comes down to whether or not you can envision a scenario in which Obi-Wan might have had a physical relationship with a woman (they needn’t have been married, after all). If you can’t, then this theory falls apart for you, and that’s fair. I think it’s not incomprehensible.

Or how about Rey is just a Force adept and her parents/guardians leaving her on Jakku is just HER story? How about her parents have NOTHING WHATEVER to do with being actually related to the Organas, the Skywalkers, the Kenobis, or anyone we’ve met in the story so far?

In the books that follow Return of the Jedi, Luke does indeed re-establish a new Jedi training facility (on Yavin 4, no less) and takes on many Force-adept students who had no background in the Jedi tradition. They were of many cultures, races, tribes, planets, species, each with their own story and background TOTALLY unrelated to the main story characters.

So how about Rey is, in fact, COMPLETELY UNRELATED to anyone else we’ve met so far and her family’s story connects with the WIDER story of the battle of the rebellion against the Empire and its widespread reign of interplanetary terror and abuse?

Who I’m curious about is when we see the shot of Little Rey being left behind she’s holding someone’s hand. I want to know who that is.

The person holding her hand is Unkar Plutt, the junk dealer we later see her dealing with. You hear his voice.

And I also like the idea that she’s unrelated to anybody. You don’t have to be related to someone we know to be Force-adept, of course. I’d be fine with that as an outcome.

BUT I don’t think it’s too likely. Star Wars is in many ways a family epic – perhaps a two-family epic – so it fits in thematically. I also don’t think that if she’s related to someone, that has to make it any less of her story. It’s definitely her story. But all of our stories are informed by our pasts and our families. If she’s unrelated to anybody, and her family is part of a wider story, that’s…kind of too much backstory to work in for two movies, to tie in a separate family line and make us care about it. It’s too late to invest in a third familial group, narratively speaking.

I am just gonna sit here and let this meta unfold because this is beautiful and I am all for it.